Presidio Inc., a privately-held IT solutions and managed services provider based in Greenbelt, MD, said that it has offered about $85 million, or $8.75 a share for INX Inc.’s 9.7 million outstanding common shares, a move the company said will gain it a needed national sales presence.

INX’s shares closed at a 52-week high of $8.61 on news of the deal, an 80 percent bump over its low water mark this year of $4.80 on May 10. INX’s board of directors has approved the transaction, which, based on shareholder and regulatory approval, is expected to close early in 2012.

Presidio maintains 31 sales offices concentrated in the eastern and southern regions of the U.S. but lacks a presence west of the Mississippi river where most of INX’s offices are concentrated. INX operates 20 offices, only four of which are located in the northeast with the remainder in the southwest, west and northwest regions of the country.

The parties said that after the transaction is completed, the resulting company, which will carry the Presidio name, will employ more than 1,800 IT professionals and operate about 45 offices in the U.S. Together, the companies maintain 51 offices but neither organization said which, if any, locations will be closed or consolidated.

“Combining INX and Presidio's capabilities will enable us to offer one of the broadest portfolios of services and advanced IT solutions available in the industry", said Kevin Penn, Presidio chairman.

Presidio and INX have a number of similarities. Both maintain practices in data center, cloud computing, collaboration, security and network infrastructure architecture, deliver managed and hosted services and operate under an IT solutions and business value model. They also have a number of vendors in common, including Cisco Systems Inc., EMC Corp., VMware Inc., NetApp Inc. and VCE Inc.

"Presidio and INX have been pursuing similar strategies in the IT solutions marketplace,” said Mark Hilz, INX president and chief executive.

“Combining our organizations will enable us to accelerate our growth and quickly build the scale that we need to provide the highest quality of service to our clients,” he said.

For the quarter ended June 30, 2011 INX posted $116.9 million in sales, a 38 percent spike from the similar period last year. However, the company slid precipitously from the $6.4 million it recorded for the similar quarter last year, earning $585,000 for the period. Analysts expect INX to post FY 2011 annual revenue of about $374 million.

In the last seven years, Presidio has bought Ficomp, Networked Information Systems, Solarcom and Coleman Technologies.